to recruit bilingual staff. This approach is more common in the West (27%) and Midwest (18%) than in the Northeast (13%) or the South (11%).
Descriptions of these bilingual staffing strategies included: targeting Spanish-speaking job candidates by adding “bilingual preferred/required” to job postings (29%) and considering the ability to speak Spanish during the hiring process (9%). Résumés are screened for bilingualism, or interview questions inquire about language skills. Occasionally mentioned strategies included publicizing in the Hispanic community, word-of-mouth recommendations for potential hires, and posting jobs in Spanish.
Professional Development for Second Language Acquisition
Also recognized is the need to support second language acquisition and an average of 26% respondents reported providing staff with professional development opportunities. This was most likely in the Midwest (38%), followed by the West (35%), the South (23%), and the Northeast (17%).
School leaders most frequently described these opportunities as providing financial support for professional development, including language classes. However, most did not elaborate on the frequency of use or the effectiveness of this approach. Other strategies listed included: access to language-learning software, such as Rosetta Stone or Transparent Language; ELL/ESL pedagogical training; language instruction led by the school Spanish teacher, school personnel, or parish staff; courses at area colleges; and professional development through the public school system.
Governance
Effective school governance is vital to the success of an excellent school.25 While school leaders, faculty, and staff are essential to Catholic schools, their work is either supported or inhibited by current governance structures. The majority of responding schools (84%) have a governing board, with 69% reporting advisory boards and 16% reporting consultative boards. This data mirrors the national picture.26 In this structure, the canonical leaders, most often pastors, are actively involved in the governance and are solely responsible for final decisions. These boards assist with advice. A small percentage of schools (10%), all sponsored by religious orders, reported other governing models: 4% report to boards of trustees and 6% report to boards of limited jurisdiction—or boards of lay leaders with official authority over school policy, finances, and governance.27
Currently in some arch/dioceses, new models are emerging, allowing pastors to participate in the life of the school while lay boards assume authority and the responsibilities of policy development and holding school leaders accountable. The steady decline in the number of priests in the country requires a reassessment of the role of the pastor in the life of the school. For instance, the number of parishes without resident pastors has steadily increased in recent years. Today 20% of all U.S. parishes are without a resident pastor.28 An immediate consequence is the increasing number of parishes and schools being consolidated, thus giving rise to new governance models where multiple parishes share one pastor, one board, and sponsor one school. Twenty-eight percent of responding schools are supported by two or more parishes. Fifteen percent of respondents reported school mergers or realignments, with the most of these (53%) in the West and the South. About half of these realignments occurred between 2008 and 2015. This pattern mirrors national trends reported by the NCEA, which recently identified 12% of all schools in the country as inter-parish schools.29
Governance boards are a critical voice and component of leadership. Membership should be diverse and represent the population served.30 On average the boards of responding schools have nine members, with a few schools indicating boards of more than 30 members. Only 23% of these boards have three or more members who self-identify as Hispanic/Latino while 33% have one or two members, and over 35% indicate no member is of Hispanic/Latino background.
Securing a diversity of voices on the board increases the level of awareness about issues that ordinarily may not be evident. For example, when asked if specific targeted financial/enrollment activities for Hispanic families are undertaken by the board, only 1 in 4 schools responded “yes.” Most of these few schools (36%) are located in the South and the smallest percentage (14%) in the Northeast. When asked whether their local arch/dioceses encouraged the recruitment of Hispanic board members, the majority (58%) responded that they “did not know” and only 7% answered “yes.” Nonetheless, several principals reported that the Catholic school office was most likely to provide recruitment programs for Hispanic board members.
Catholic School Culture(s)
Catholic schools are called to be spaces with a robust Catholic culture and worldview that is evident in all curriculum and instruction…and fosters the desire to seek wisdom and truth with a preference for social justice.31 Students and families also bring their own cultural worldviews and thus the school becomes a place where the cultures of the Church and the community meet. Culture is manifested in signs, symbols, and ways of thinking and behaving. Key areas in which the cultural commitment to mission is often visible are the expressions of genuine hospitality extended to all families and a curriculum rooted in Gospel values. Culture is mediated by the practices, convictions, symbols, and languages of those who embody it. Accordingly, this research examined the extent to which Hispanic cultures are intentionally acknowledged, integrated, and celebrated in Catholic schools serving Hispanic families. The environmental signs and symbols, liturgical/worship practices, and programming to support and welcome Hispanic families in the school community were explored with respondents.
Signs and Symbols
Upon entering a school, the guest is surrounded by signs and symbols, often revealing identity and mission. One-fourth (25%) of responding principals report that prominent school symbols are intentionally culturally diverse and inclusive. And in 21% of responding schools, school signage is displayed in Spanish and English.
Worship Life
When asked about prayer and liturgical experiences, more than one-third of respondents (36%) reported the inclusion of Spanish-language components in school liturgies, and that school prayers are written and shared in Spanish (35%). Overall, 60% reported that school liturgies and prayers reflect and embrace the Hispanic culture in some ways.
Principals and school leaders who are fluent in Spanish, have participated in Hispanic ministry and theology training, or have participated in cultural competency training to work with Hispanic Catholics in the United States were substantially more likely to say that their school’s liturgies included Spanish-language components and that prayers are written and shared in Spanish.
Academic Culture
An inclusive academic culture is central to creating a culture of welcome and is marked by intentional programming to support and advance a diverse student population. Catholic schools often build on the principles of Catholic social teaching, which emphasizes human dignity and the common good, to develop service delivery systems that welcome all students. An inclusive approach is necessary where service delivery is integrated into the “heterogeneous school community” and where students’ needs are met in ways that keep them included rather than in manners that exclude them.32 A principal reported: “We think that parents want their kids to have roots and wings. Therefore we offer our immersion program in Spanish/English…Hispanic families/students are interested in a school that offers Spanish and other Hispanic cultural events that the children will not lose their roots.” This approach is the ideal. Yet our research reveals the predominant model among responding Catholic schools is not necessarily one of integration but one that relies on separation and an assumption that a second language is a deficit.
Over half of the respondents (58%) reported offering at least one or more programs for students who spoke Spanish at home. No one program was offered by all respondents but rather several programs were cited including: tutoring (43%), remedial instruction (40%), before- and after-school instruction (20%), pull-out programs for every grade (17%), and English as a foreign language programs (14%). Forty percent reported in-class assistance and 13% noted other programming. Only 4% of respondents indicated participation in a bilingual program, which research shows is one of the better instructional models for ensuring academic achievement for pre-K – 8 grades.33